US President Donald Trump doubled down Friday on his claim of an "attempted coup" against him as his battle with Democratic foes entered a vicious new phase of personal insults and strong-arm tactics. Hovering over it all: the looming question of whether or not the Republican leader will be impeached -- "the big I-word," as Trump put it recently. The president said he has given his attorney general wide latitude to declassify intelligence information as he probes the origins of the government's investigation into Trump's 2016 campaign ties to Russia.

In a stunning escalation of the Trump administration's war on the press, the Justice Department has indicted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for revealing government secrets under the Espionage Act. The charges invoke broad provisions of the Espionage Act that make it a crime to disclose or retain any defense information knowing it “could be used to injure” the U.S. The act has no exception for reporters or publishers, but prior administrations have balked at invoking the law against journalists for fear of colliding with the First Amendment.

Army engineers say two runaway barges did "minimal" damage when they struck an Arkansas River dam. The barges, filled with 1,500 tons of fertilizer, swept down the flood-swollen river and hit the Webbers Falls Lock and Dam about noon Thursday and sank. Town officials in the riverfront town of Webbers Falls had warned residents to flee for fear such a collision would catastrophically breach the dam and flood the town.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Saturday that the U.S. decision to deploy more troops to the Middle East in response to the perceived threat from Iran was "extremely dangerous" for peace. The United States said it was sending 1,500 troops to region in what it called an effort to bolster defenses against Tehran, and it accused Iran's Revolutionary Guards of direct responsibility for attacks on tankers this month. quot;The Americans have made such allegations to justify their hostile policies and to raise tensions in the Persian Gulf," Zarif told state news agency IRNA.

If you've got Touch Bars on the brain but you've been unwilling to cough up the extra cash to get one, today is your lucky day. Amazon is running a one-day Gold Box deal on renewed MacBook Pro with Touch Bar models, and the prices are crazy. This product has been tested and certified to work and look like new, with minimal to no signs of wear, by a manufacturer or specialized third-party seller approved by Amazon.

Facebook has been accused of leaving 'broken children' as collateral damage in the wake of their commercial aims, the child sex abuse inquiry has heard. Barrister William Chapman, representing the victims of abuse at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), said social media companies were not preventing paedophiles reaching children as it was “contrary to their business model” and that their apps needed to be “fundamentally redesigned”. Police also warned that tech firms were going ahead with plans to encrypt more features "in the certain knowledge" it would lead to more children being abused.

This month Alabama passed a law banning abortions at any time period with no exceptions for rape or incest, only when the mother's health is at risk. Two other states – Ohio and Mississippi – have passed similar legislation, which also do not include exceptions for rape or incest. Georgia passed a bill banning abortions after six weeks and includes the exceptions, but requires an official police report alleging the crimes (research shows 3 out of every 4 sexual assaults are not reported, and out of every 1,000 rapes only five perpetrators are convicted). INTERACTIVE MAP: Where is abortion legal? Debate over the exceptions has dominated headlines and ignited Twitter wars.

Simulator training remains a "possible option" for Canadian Boeing 737 MAX pilots, but it's too early to say whether it would be mandatory, a Transport Canada official said on Thursday night, further distancing the regulator from previous remarks by the country's transport minister. "It would be premature not seeing what Boeing has fully proposed yet to determine if simulator training will in fact be included," said Nicholas Robinson, the regulator's director general, civil aviation, told reporters on a conference call following a meeting of global regulators in Texas. Canada's Transport Minister Marc Garneau called in April for pilots to received simulator training for Boeing's software fix.

Prominent Trump critic George Conway on Thursday posted a picture of President Trump's $35,000 check to his former lawyer Michael Cohen, along with a quote from Trump's Wednesday press conference: “I don't do cover-ups. Cohen has testified that the check was partial reimbursement for the $130,000 he paid actress Stormy Daniels as hush money to cover up a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump. The money changed hands shortly before the 2016 election and was part of the evidence in Cohen's plea deal with federal prosecutors that resulted in his prison sentence.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met allies and former mentors Friday to plot a course for his second term after a landslide victory left the once-mighty Gandhi dynasty reeling. A considerable to-do list includes addressing India's lacklustre economic growth and reducing unemployment, as well as fixing a stricken agriculture sector on which 70 percent of households depend. Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 303 seats, its best ever score, giving it an even bigger majority than five years ago and defying predictions of a dip, final results confirmed Friday.

A new indictment against Julian Assange could further delay what was already expected to be a protracted battle to get the WikiLeaks founder out of a London jail cell and into a U.S. court, opening the door for his legal team to argue that the Espionage Act charges are political and thus not covered by an extradition treaty between the two countries. U.S. authorities want to extradite Assange to face charges that he directed the publication of a huge trove of secret documents that disclosed the names of people who provided confidential information to American and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The criteria aren't clearly spelled out, but Assange and his lawyers are likely to use the charges filed Thursday to argue that the Justice Department wants to put him on trial for crimes that are inherently political in that they involve the acquisition and publication of government secrets.

Climate change has long been a disaster in the making, but until recently the American public tended to treat it as an afterthought. The Green New Deal brought climate change front and center, and made Americans think about big bold solutions instead of technical tweaks and half measures. The think tank Data for Progress has a plan that actually predates Ocasio-Cortez’s, but which goes into much greater detail about how to combat climate change both at home and abroad.

Global tech firms, including chip suppliers, are cutting ties with China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd after the U.S. government put the world's largest telecom equipment maker on a trade blacklist citing national security concerns. The United States has effectively banned its companies from doing business with Huawei, exacerbating an ongoing Sino-U.S. trade war. Huawei is allowed to buy U.S. goods until Aug. 19 to maintain existing telecoms networks and provide software updates to its smartphones.

A US federal judge Friday blocked Mississippi's strict abortion law which would have banned the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy. The bill banning abortion where a heartbeat is detectable -- from six weeks -- was passed in March and was due to go into effect on July 1. Mississippi has passed another law banning abortions prior to viability," district judge Carlton Reeves wrote in his order.

It’s been 73 days since Sarah Huckabee Sanders last held a “daily” White House press briefing. For the most part, she has chosen to bring the Trump administration’s message to Fox News and Fox News only. But on Thursday morning she stepped out of her comfort zone and was quickly reminded what it feels like to be questioned by a real reporter. Sanders’ interview with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on New Day started out all smiles as the two women exchanged pleasantries. But as soon as the host began to dig in on President Trump’s ultimatum to Democrats in Congress that he will not work with them on infrastructure until they stop investigating him, things went south.Alisyn Camerota Loves Doing Journalism at CNN, After Doing the Opposite at Fox News“Congress say they can do two things at once, the Democrats is Congress say this isn't a problem,” Camerota said. “So is the president saying that he cannot do infrastructure while he's being investigated?” “I think it’s a complete lie that Democrats in Congress think they can do two things at once,” Sanders replied. “So far we haven't seen them do anything. Nancy Pelosi has had the majority in the House for months and is yet to accomplish a single thing. They literally haven’t gotten anything done since she took over.” When Camerota pointed out that since January, the House has passed 248 bills and the Senate has passed 161, Sanders laughed it off as insignificant. “I just want to say, it's the president who is saying that he can't do infrastructure while he's being investigated,” Camerota reiterated. “He is the one who walked out of the meeting. So just so that we're clear, he's saying that bridges are not going to be fixed until he's no longer investigated, is that what we hear from the White House?” Instead of answering that question, Sanders stammered a bit as she once again accused Democrats of being “incapable of doing anything other than investigating this president.”“They spend all of their time attacking him and the fact that they would have a meeting an hour before they are set to arrive at the White House where Nancy Pelosi literally accuses the president of a crime and then wants to walk into his office and sit down as if nothing happened, that's just—that's lunacy,” she continued. “That's not even in the realm of possibility. The president absolutely wants to get infrastructure done, he wants to secure our border, he wants to do things that help our veterans, he wants to improve our education system, he wants to do all of those things but Democrats have been unwilling to work with him.”Fox News' Chris Wallace Shuts Down Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ Claim About Terrorists Crossing BorderLater, after confirming that Trump’s “merit-based” immigration plan will not prioritize DREAMers, Sanders returned to her attacks on Pelosi for suggesting the president may have committed a crime. “That would be like John telling you that he thought you were stealing from the network and then sitting down in the chair next to you and saying, but no big deal, let's just move forward,” she said, referring to Camerota’s co-host John Berman. “John would never accuse me of something like that,” Camerota said with a smile. “I would hope not,” Sanders added. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

President Trump announced Friday that the U.S. will send about 1,500 more troops to the Middle East to play a “mostly protective” role, amid escalating tensions with Iran. About 1,000 troops will be sent to the region and close to 600 will have their deployments in the Middle East extended, according to the director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Rear Admiral Michael Gilday.

A U.N. maritime tribunal ruled Saturday that Russia must immediately release three Ukrainian naval vessels captured by Russia in November and also free the 24 sailors it detained. The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea issued its order at its Hamburg headquarters following a hearing earlier this month. Russia stayed away from both the hearing and Saturday's session.

Investec Asset Management, Aberdeen Standard Investments and Pictet Asset Management SA are cutting sterling positions or staying on the sidelines as Britain’s political turmoil reignites uncertainty around the nation’s exit from the European Union. With a senior minister resigning to add pressure on Prime Minister Theresa May to abandon her deal with the EU and quit, the risk of a disorderly Brexit is back on the radar. Sterling slid to a four-month low near $1.26 Thursday and is on the longest losing streak on record versus the euro amid concern that May’s successor could take Britain out of the bloc without a deal or call an early election.

Japanese conglomerate Panasonic Corp joined a growing list of global companies that is disengaging from Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, the world's second-largest seller of smartphones and the largest telecom-gear maker, saying it had stopped shipments of some components. Its move came a day after British chip designer ARM said it had halted relations with Huawei to comply with the U.S. supply blockade, potentially crippling the Chinese firm's ability to make new chips for smartphones. Huawei uses ARM blueprints to design the processors that power its smartphones.

Three people were killed in the small town of Golden City, Missouri, officials said, while the midwestern state's capital Jefferson City was struck by what the National Weather Service called a "large and destructive" tornado Wednesday night. The tornado caused significant damage, trapping people in buildings and homes, and knocking down power lines and trees. Rescue workers were checking door-to-door for survivors Thursday, some 20 people were injured and treated at hospitals overnight, and more injuries were expected, officials said.